Mikus:
Calm down, I was asking not stating. Besides Judo!=MMA the gi would probably help stop ppl taking your back - I don't know. All I'm saying is that I haven't had much success with hip throws, and ppl haven't had much success against me with them. Hence is why I asked about hip throws in the first place.

Hip throws are pretty good, for one thing, the favourite throw of Jigoro Kano was the basic hip throw (ukigoshi).
It has to be said, though, that they work much better as a counter or as the second step of a combination. Osotogari -> Haraigoshi, for instance.
The easiest way to execute hip throws is with head and neck control. Works like a charm, I've thrown more than a wrestler this way. Of course, you have to be quick or they WILL get out of it. This is true for most throws though. The only "throws" you can work on for a long time are the shoots. In most other cases, the opponent either goes flying soon or gets out (and sets himself for another throw ;) )

Phil: It just seems ludicrous to question the validity of hip throws. They are done all the time in judo competitions, with full resistance. But if you **** it up, you WILL get your back taken and you in all likelihood WILL get chucked with a suplex or tani otoshi or really whatever the person wants. But the thing is that at high level judo competitions, ANY throw you attempt will have a huge chance of a counter if you **** it up. Check out the clip of someone suplexing the **** out of another person who tries an inside leg trip (ouchi gari). Also there are a lot of videos of people getting thrown when attempting a double or single leg. It's really not a matter of which throws are better, it's a matter of who is doing the throws. A doesn't always beat B.

As in Judo isn't always as in MMA - the gi for one thing. You may see many hip throws in Judo competition, but you don't in MMA. This isn't because MMAers don't know how to hip throw.
Granted that at high level skill any mistake can cost you badly, but when you put your hips through it's surely worse because they can take your back.
I'm not questioning the validity of a hip throw in Judo, but in MMA you just don't see that many.

That's not really true. Judo throws are becoming more and more popular as more judo/sambo people enter MMA. In the beginning there were very few. But nowadays there are more. Fedor's teamate hip threw alistair overeem like nothing (he later went on to get beaten up, but the hip throw was nice). Oyama launched Dan Henderson, a VERY good greco-roman wrestler, with a harai goshi (hip throw). Sakuraba countered Newton with an uchimata (not a hip throw, but close). Yoshida threw Silva like nothing with a hip throw. I can assure you that hip throws (and big judo throws in general) are going to become more and more popular, and in fact ARE becoming more and more popular.